Ex-student ruled insane in car deaths

Published 4:00 am, Friday, June 21, 2002

Photo: RAFAEL MALDONADO

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** ADDS NAME OF ATTORNEY ** David Attias smiles with one of his attorneys, Nancy Haydt, after a jury found Thursday, June 20, 2002, he was insane when he drove through a crowded street and killed four pedestrians in a student housing area serving the University of California, Santa Barbara. (AP Photo/Rafael Maldonado, POOL) less

** ADDS NAME OF ATTORNEY ** David Attias smiles with one of his attorneys, Nancy Haydt, after a jury found Thursday, June 20, 2002, he was insane when he drove through a crowded street and killed four ... more

Photo: RAFAEL MALDONADO

Ex-student ruled insane in car deaths

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David Attias was insane when he used his Saab sedan to run down and kill four young pedestrians -- three from the Bay Area -- on a crowded street near UC Santa Barbara, a jury ruled Thursday.

The jurors found Attias guilty last week of four counts of second-degree murder, but they determined Thursday that the 20-year-old former student hadn't known right from wrong when he sped down the Isla Vista road and later shouted, "I am the angel of death."

Attias' parents and grandmother cried as Superior Court Judge Thomas Adams read the verdict. On the other side of the packed courtroom, the mother of victim Nick Bourdakis, the 20-year-old Alamo man who was attending UC Santa Barbara, also sobbed. Bourdakis' father, Tony, rested his face in his hands.

David Attias, who was on medication during the eight-week trial and seemed more alert than usual, looked pleased.

Each murder conviction carries a 15-year-to-life prison term, but Attias will not go to state prison because of the insanity finding. Instead, he will be committed to a state mental hospital until a jury decides it's safe to release him. Attias can apply to be released after being institutionalized for 180 days, defense attorney Jack Earley said, but he doubted that his client would be freed soon.

"David will probably spend a large portion of his life in a mental hospital,

and that's an appropriate place for this case to end," he said.

Commitment to an institution is not a light sentence, Earley said outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse.

"The state mental hospital is not a pretty picture," he said. "Patton State Hospital (in San Bernardino) is an old and overcrowded unit. There are no frills. But they are dealing with treatment there."

Attias' parents said they were happy with the outcome.

"We are grateful for the decision," said Daniel Attias, a prominent Los Angeles television director whose credits include "The Sopranos," "Ally McBeal" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "We think it was just. We're mindful that this was a horrible, horrible tragedy. The losses that were incurred on Feb. 23, 2001, were permanent, and we were shaken and saddened. We're grateful,

"By rendering the insanity verdict, in our opinion, the state of California has once again demonstrated to the rest of the country that you can twist the facts to your advantage and get away with murder," he said while reading from a written statement in the courthouse hallway. "The tragedy of what happened can't be undone, and in our opinion David Attias will not serve the appropriate time for killing four young people and horribly injuring a fifth."

Jurors made a pact inside the deliberation room not to discuss their decision with anyone, the judge said.

During six weeks of testimony, Earley painted Attias as a man who has suffered from mental illness since nursery school. Frightened that the stigma of his disease would permanently mark their son, the Attias family alternated between denial and the desperate search for treatment, according to testimony.

Daniel Attias enrolled his son in a private high school that specialized in treating mental illness without medication. But at some point, the boy's parents realized that anti-psychotic drugs were the only answer, Earley said.

The problem was that Attias refused to take his medication, Earley said. Daniel Attias bought him the turbo-charged Saab as an incentive to get his son to take his medication, but it didn't work, Earley said.

On the day Attias killed the four pedestrians and critically injured a fifth, he had slipped into a delusional state and did not know what he was doing, Earley said.

During the trial, prosecutor Patrick McKinley acknowledged that Attias is a troubled young man but argued that his problems do not rise to the level of legal insanity.

McKinley portrayed Attias as violent, hostile and arrogant and said the former college student had a history of driving erratically and using illegal drugs. According to trial testimony, Attias grabbed a classmate by the neck in the third grade and choked his own sister when he was 13.

Attias was acting with the same disregard for life when he got into his Saab, ran a stop sign and careened into nine parked cars before mowing down his five victims.

In addition to Nick Bourdakis, the dead were Elie Israel, 27, of Oakland; Ruth Levy, 20, of San Francisco; and Christopher Divis, 20, of San Diego. Levy's 27-year-old brother, Albert, was severely injured but survived.